A Texas jury on Thursday awarded damages for emotional distress Jones’ company caused by falsely claiming that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 children and six teachers were killed, was a hoax staged to justify the arms control. The jury deliberated for about a day before returning its verdict. It will now consider the plaintiffs’ request for punitive damages, which could result in an additional award. While the firefighter has courted controversy for more than two decades on his InfoWars website, the Sandy Hook action is the first major legal reckoning for Jones’ media enterprise. The defamation lawsuit was filed by Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy killed in Sandy Hook. During his trial testimony this week, Jones denied the lies his companies had been actively promoting for several years. He admitted that the deadliest US school shooting was “100 percent real” and not a “false flag” operation, as he had long claimed. He also expressed regret for “unintentionally” hurting people’s feelings. Lewis and Heslin had sought up to $150 million in damages for a decade of emotional torture, saying their lives had been made a “living hell” by death threats and harassment from strangers who mistakenly believed the couple had faked their child’s death. Jones, who hosts the InfoWars radio show and webcast, has been banned from major social media platforms for hate speech and abuse. But his site continues to attract a significant audience. InfoWars hosted nearly 8 million hits last month, according to data firm Similarweb. Jones has already been found liable by default in three lawsuits filed in Texas and Connecticut after he failed to disclose relevant information requested by the court. In a move to potentially limit financial exposure, Jones’ company Free Speech Systems, parent of InfoWars, filed for bankruptcy last week. Three other affiliates have sought Chapter 11 protection this year.

Jones was the only witness in his defense this week. He was deposed on cross-examination before the judge acquitted him of lying under oath. “This is not your show,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told him. “Just because you claim to believe something is true does not make it true. It doesn’t protect you. Not allowed.” An attorney for the plaintiffs also revealed during the trial that Jones’ legal team had inadvertently shared two years’ worth of messages from Jones’ phone. The attorney said he had received requests to share the messages with various authorities, including the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.